


Hunter and the Snake

by FanofFangs



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bondage, F/M, Femdom, Human/Monster Romance, Kidnapping, Light Sadism, Monsters, Older Woman/Younger Man, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:21:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanofFangs/pseuds/FanofFangs
Summary: Cadmus, a Theban from a well to do family, looks for a payday as a hunter. After fleeing home when Thebes goes to war, he ends up in the clutches of Medusa. Deciding not to kill him, she takes him under her wing and shows him cruelty and kindness in equal measure as they explore the depths of his submission.
Relationships: Medusa/Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 60





	1. Into the Lion's Den

**Author's Note:**

> Tried to maintain historical accuracy for the context of the war and for Greek society. This chapter is more of an introduction so is a bit of a slow-starter and doesn't include much real juiciness. Chapter 2 will change that and will be uploaded ASAP!

Cadmus was the first son of his family, but the last to think of war. His brothers had favoured the sword and spear, while he the bow. His father Theon was a decorated general for Thebes, winning many territories in Boeotia. Rumours were spreading that Sparta was looking to conquer Thebes, and the young man was the only one with his sights on anything but defence of the kingdom. In his mind, the only prize worth winning was an Olympic wreath. 

“There is a time and a place for such vanities, but the brink of war is neither!” his father asserted on being made aware of his son’s wishes. “Look to your brothers: how they lay mortar for the strengthening of the walls; how they set upon the straw with their swords from dusk until dawn. You are supposed to *be* their example, yet I must make them yours! You forget your place—we did not come from men, but from dragons, and their fury is our own. Others’ destiny is for games —ours is for defence of our city. Remember who you come from, when you forge your path.”   
And with these stern words and a solemn shake of his head, Theon turned from his son and walked back to the fortification.

Cadmus was left feeling isolated and ostracized, as if he did not belong here anymore. As much as he loved his brothers, and growing up in their fine house with attendants and luxuries, he could not bear the thought of human blood on his soul. In that moment, he resolved himself to leave before the enlistment call was made, at which point to do so would be a capital crime. That very night he packed his smaller belongings in saddlebags and filled his purses with coins from his chest.   
He signed over the deed to his vineyard to his closest brother, next in age, with whom he had always shared his joy of hunting, along with a note promising to reunite one day, when the city was secure and the army demobilized. His writing was lengthy, aggravated by the dim candlelight as he wanted to dim his presence, as well as by the tears that did not cease to blur his vision as he put his pen to paper. He wept at the thought of the last image of his ageing father being the back of his head; at the thought of failing to inspire and lead his brothers despite his moral objections.

With preparations made, he departed to Elis and to the Valley of Olympia. Throughout his journey, he made stops for rest and rejuvenation, and often overheard tales of dangerous animals. He thought it prudent to conserve his money where possible, and to prepare for the competition by honing his skills at archery and riding. He offered to sell his expertise in beast slaying for shelter, drink and company, and to buy his anonymity from the Thebans that would surely come to fetch him.   
And so it was, that by journey’s end he had drained every vine dry and could pierce the heart of a wolf by the light of a single candle. He promptly secured first place in both archery and riding, and kept his wreaths in the hope of one day placing them on the mantlepiece of his family home.

To his dismay it came about that the rumours of invasion were true, as Spartans occupied the Cadmeia, Thebes’ building of highest office, and tried to besiege the city. Wanting to put a sea between he and his people, along with their enemies, he spent much of his gold on a journey to Crete. Trapped in a distant kingdom and unable to return home, Cadmus desperately searched for a way to make a living. He did as he did before: lingered in taverns, among courtesans, and around tanners, hoping to stay aware of situations requiring the skills of hunting or the use of transport.  
One afternoon he heard soldiers talking about an impossible foe occupying ruins. Unfortunately, he arrived too late and remained too far from the band to hear the full account, but the glass blower nearby heard all. Getting up from his bench, he put a small pouch of coin on the man’s table.  
“Those men over there…” he nodded in the general direction of the departing soldiers, “what were they so concerned about?”  
The craftsman looked around nervously, before eyeing the coin and sacrificing silence for greed.   
“Don’t tell anyone, but…” he leaned in, so as to speak more softly “they think a large beast has taken over the ruins. People keep on coming in, they say, but don’t leave again.”  
“And how did they know this? If no one returns, who witnesses?” Cadmus interrogated the man, dissatisfied.  
“Word has it that someone at the garrison saw some of his fellows leave their barracks at night with full packs and rations. They mentioned Minos’ palace. The longer he listened, the less sure he was of it being a training exercise, and the more he began to think it was desertion. A band was sent out the next morning to bring back the bastards for trial, but the group that stood watch outside never saw the retrieval squad emerge. These men were all armed and shielded. Not wet behind the ears when it comes to killing. So whatever killed ‘em must have been even bigger and tougher.”  
At this point in the tale the merchant opened his eyes widely for emphasis and flashed a wide grin, baring a loose gathering of yellowed teeth.  
“Kill the monster, and find out what happened to that sorry lot” he nodded in the vague direction of the palace ruins “and you could ask the soldiers for whatever you want. Hell, you could probably ask the Commander if you can fuck his wife in the arse and he’ll have to say yes!” He laughed long and hard at his crude joke, boisterously jostling the young man to his displeasure.   
“Yeah, something like that.” He muttered as he departed from the crass merchant.  
His heart set on winning citizenship by defeating this beast and uncovering the fate of the soldiers, he asked as much of the commander of the garrison. 

The next morning, he rode to the ruins: the palace entrance resembling the crumbling mouth of a cave, and the inside just as dark. His horse moved through the dusty caverns at a slow canter, and stopped before a fallen column that had become a barricade of sorts. Cadmus realized he had to dismount and scout ahead on foot. Stringing his bow and drawing it back just past his elbow, he tentatively made his way forward into the atrium.   
A small fire cast shadows on the high walls and illuminated the expanse of the hall. He assumed that this was where the bandits had made camp, and crept along the perimeter of the wall to his right—the shadows concealing his movements. Drawing closer he became increasingly alarmed at the number of figures surrounding the fire and blocking his view of it. What alarmed him most was that despite this vast multitude, and the brigandish reputation of soldiers on leave, not a sound came from any of them.

“Why are they so quiet so far from the city? Do they know I’m here?” he considered. “I’ll get closer and see who’s in charge. Maybe if I kill him I can scare the others off.”

And so, cautious to maintain his distance and his invisibility, he made his way towards the centre in a sweeping arc. He positioned himself so that he could see the whole congregation through a gap in their ranks and was stunned by what he saw. The fire illuminated the features of the men, showing their skin to be ashen and their complexions frozen. No light shone from the eyes of any one of them, instead they were painted with firelight in the manner of the stone walls around him.   
He came to the realization that he was surrounded by immaculate statues, whose details and unique postures could not be fashioned by the greatest sculptors of Athens. With a well-lit workshop and any number of attendants, none still could produce works like these. How, then, did they appear in a dim, dead palace on Crete with no tools or workers to be seen? Cadmus could only reason that it was the work of Ares, punishing the men for deserting their posts.

Among them though he saw a small shape move, closest to the fire. He heard low growls, and the sound of an animal being devoured, the creature apparently gorging itself on one of the men’s horses with great appetite. It was as he moved in line with the animal’s ribcage, hoping to pierce the side through the lungs, that he saw an image that would at once shock and captivate him.   
Through the soaring flames a writhing mass flailed crazily, obscuring a downcast face chewing on a hunk of meat on the end of a sword. The wild hair cast her eyes in darkness, lending mystery to her face. A strong jaw moved steadily up and down while full lips, glistening with juice, pursed as she ate. It was then that he realised the fire was in fact drowning out a different hiss from a horde of silver and green snakes gathered atop the humanoid’s head. He saw tight quadriceps tense and bulge impossibly, and a muscled back that went on forever and was wider than his own rippled magnificently as strong arms manhandled the carcass to find their way to more meat for the fire. He wagered that once stood up, the creature would dwarf him: standing at least at six feet. 

At the sudden and intrusive thought of being manhandled in the same way by this force of nature, he stopped breathing as his head swam with the details, for him to inhale sharply. The sound was easily picked up in the empty hall, yet the creature rose nonchalantly as if she heard nothing at all. The firelight flickered off the mighty yet undeniably feminine silhouette, drawing Cadmus further into a spell of lust. Her wide hips and her bust cast a glorious shadow on the wall, and her tight buttocks captured his gaze with their firm jiggle as their possessor sauntered away. He became awestruck at the towering woman of his dreams, clothed in nothing but contrasting darkness and light from the fire, and dropped his bow.   
This did not go unnoticed by the predator, who out of the corner of her eye witnessed his submission in laying down his arms. Purple lips curled in a smile. She decided to truly test the man—to discover the lengths he would go to for her. She picked up a silver dinner tray and cast it sideways, such that the rim struck the unsuspecting man in his chest, just barely protected in time by crossed arms as he witnessed the glint of the projectile a split second before impact. The force was so great that he toppled backwards: his head colliding with a pillar, sending him down to the floor and to sleep.


	2. In a bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus gets an interview with his new protector.

Cadmus’ view of the world was different when he awoke, or rather, it was nonexistent. A part of his cloak had been removed and drawn around his eyes; the fabric hanging just below his nostrils and irritating him slightly when he drew in a breath. He discovered that a horse’s bit had been fastened around his mouth when he tried to move his jaw to get the ache out and his teeth ground uncomfortably against iron. He tried to roll over onto his back to realise that he could use neither his legs nor his arms, which had been tied behind him so that his elbows almost met. It was a most uncomfortable position, yet he felt uniquely secure and contented.  
Part of that may have owed itself to his proximity to the fire, he assured himself, whose warmth he felt on his cheeks and breast. He was on his side, and by the warmth he wagered he was not far from where he had fallen. He was beginning to turn his concern towards his horse, who had been fed and watered an indeterminable length of time before his captivity, when a hand brushed through his hair and undid the fastening on his gag. 

“It’s been eight hours since you were on your feet, as you can likely tell from the gentle tingle in your arms and shoulders”, a resonant voice said, with more than a hint of mirth. “Your horse was found by the entrance, and has had some water and an apple. Now that your probable questions are answered as well as I am willing to answer them, you will answer mine.” The voice grew closer as she spoke, hovering threateningly about his ears. The clear-cut authority and clipped tone in her voice soaked into Cadmus’ bones and burned the skin of his face. His throat was momentarily paralysed and he could articulate nothing to fill the silence or give a worthy response.  
“I’ll continue, then. First: who sent you? Who has become so aware of my presence here?”  
Cadmus met her voice with one of fear and confusion. “I’m Cad-mus. A h-hunter. Was here to … kill lions or something. Please don’t kill me!”   
His captor heard the juvenility and genuine fear in the way he spoke. But she could not yet be certain of his naivety about her situation. She would need to press further.   
She scrunched his long, thick hair between her toes and exerted pressure from her foot down on the side of his head so that his cheek was pushed ever further into the dirty stone floor.   
“Who. Told. You. Where. I. Was?” she shouted into his ear, pressing firmly with each word.  
“Soldiers in the town!” he replied desperately. She got purchase in his hair more firmly, and dragged his cheek in a sweeping fashion across the rough stone.   
Feeling his skin rubbed ever more raw, Cadmeus expanded, panic filling his head. “Soldiers from the garrison I SWEAR!! I overheard talk of deserters from the camp going missing and that they thought an animal in the ruins finished them. No one told me anyone like you lived here!” He blurted out all he could: about his hunting for coin; about his bribing the merchant to tell him the soldiers’ business; he just hoped that this savage would spare him from pain for his honesty.  
He had never gone to war: he had never had to deal with real hardship beyond inclement weather on a hunt. The sensations he felt now were all new and conflicting and overwhelming, and until he could reason with them his only wish was for them to stop.

He heard her panting above him, her vigorous coercion clearly working her up into as great a sweat as himself. She caught her breath and swallowed.  
“You were too quick to sell your informants down the river. I am satisfied that you are no soldier. You have no loyalty to your own, for one thing, and are too much of a coward to have survived a battlefield. Now, I have another question, and I hope for your sake that your answer is just as pitifully pleasing. My question is, what am I to do with you?”   
He could not see her, but she grinned like a Cheshire cat as she lorded over him, her voice again coming from on high—trailing off at the end of the sentence to indicate a certain levity and amusement to her question.  
“What should you do with m-me? Please, I just want to go home! I’ve told you everything! I didn’t even see you!”   
At that point she laughed heartily. “Sweet boy, that is the only reason you’re still alive!” she said. “All of my “companions” once stood in the same place you did, but met my gaze and thus: their fate.” She gestured widely around her cavern.   
This prompted Cadmeus to put together the previous scenes. The statues with faces filled with terror, the hissing of snakes above the fire.   
“M-m-Medusa…”.   
“Hmmhmm quite right, young man. Few get the chance to solve that puzzle. As much as it is to create an aura of suspense and threat, that blindfold is for your own protection, I assure you….”

She chuckled softly as she let the message drop off her lips. His incredulous mind did not even notice her orienting him so that his back was against a pillar.   
“Uurghh….” he groaned as feeling resumed in his arms: hot blood aided by gravity lit up every artery and prickling pain shot down to his fingers. Medusa laughed heartily and patted his arms vigorously. “Ahahaha aww you can feel your arms again! You should thank me”. She smiled and let silence sink into the room. She tutted and again whispered into his ear.  
“Thank me.”  
It was Cadmus’ turn to swallow hard. He could barely register everything happening around him. His helpless position, the casual cruelty and authority of his captoress, the hot breath passing over his earlobe. “Thank you… for helping me sit up….”.  
She drew back like a rattlesnake and continued with an indifferent tone. “Good boy. Now, I have decided to acknowledge your whining and will, indeed, spare your life. But don’t get too excited— you see, I have noticed something about you that I find curious and endlessly entertaining. You would do *anything* asked of you by someone like me. As has been made clear by my little family, I have killed many. I no longer…feel….anything when I meet an assailant head on. I want someone to *give* their life to me. Freely.”  
Letting it sink in, she crouched and took Cadmus’ face in her hands. “And I think that someone may be you.”

He was almost lost for words and took more than a moment to respond, both to her words and her newfound intimacy. “You want me to kill myself?” He asked.  
“I want you to look at me. By choice. Knowing the consequences if you do. And you’ll do it because you are desperate to put a face to the image of me that sits in your head. And because I want you to. You could do it now….” She trailed off, tracing her fingertips backwards around the blindfold; teasing the fabric where the knot was. She wanted to terrify her captive with the prospect of battling his own will rather than a material barrier. 

For the first time since that morning, his face was exposed: to the cool air of the cavern and to the radiant heat of the fire, still burning. He could hear and feel her encroach on his position, a spider promising death in front of his face. He was made aware of her hot breath tinged with the scent of blood and red wine, and the hazy sibilance of the snakes cresting her head.   
He was not so much terrified of her as he was of his own nature. He was fighting a war of attrition: her patience, like that of the statues decorating her home, versus his own lust for contact with her beauty. He wanted to meet both her eyes and lips: to see if her smooth, wet tongue danced as freely in his mouth as the words did in her own; to see if her eyes were as cold as her fingertips; to see if the snakes swayed with the hypnotism of their soft wall of sound.   
His temptation crashed feverishly against the gate of restraint he had erected in his mind, threatening to let in oblivion. At his breaking point, when she could see the strain painted on his face and the hammering pulse in his neck, she snarled and roughly pulled the covering down over her guest’s eyes once more. She sounded more displeased than she was: indeed, she would not admit it, but she was glad that the whelp was offering some resistance to her commands, even if it was only to save his own skin. Quite literally.   
Now that he was covered up again, she could allow her satisfaction to show on her face, as she thought of the ways she might make use of him until she destroyed his willpower.  
“What’s your name, boy?”  
“…Cadmus…” he revealed hesitantly.  
“Cadmus… I will probably never use that, but it’s nice to know all the same.”


	3. Confrontation and Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus hands her more power with a choice revelation.

Satisfied that he could do nothing to move from his position, she silently left him and retreated into an alcove of the sunken castle. There she had installed a shrine to her patron, Athene, who despite cursing Medusa, never lost her fervent adoration. The shrine consisted of a stone altar fashioned from broken tiles and columns, topped by a gold mixing bowl and a bronze figure of the owl—both polished to a solar gleam. When light streamed in at dawn, the shrine was illuminated by a golden glow. At night, once-tall candles lit up the stone table. By their stoutness and the pool of wax around the base, one would think that they had been there for a lifetime. Although the rest of the room was unkept—with crumbled bits of stone, armour and clothing scattered carelessly—the altar was immaculate: swept clean of debris, and each object carefully positioned such that Athene’s prized bird took pride of place at the front-middle. It was as if Medusa held on to her humanity by maintaining the only connection to her past life as high priestess.

Medusa now set herself to work at a high table, fashioned from the shield with which she had acquired the prey who drifted in and out of wakefulness not ten feet away. She had managed to balance it atop the heads of two cowering bandits. She cut up olives and pears with Cadmus’ hunting knife, the steady chopping lulling him into a trance. Trying a strawberry and humming, pleased at its sweetness, she picked up a nearby goblet and sipped the sweet wine, tentatively as it had not been much diluted, due to the water being put to use for that horse’s thirst. A smile crossed her face as she considered a way to wake him that might entertain her. She drew her shortsword and crept up on Cadmus, not wishing for the noise to wake him. She carefully pressed the flat of the bronze against the young man’s cheek, such that he drew in a sharp breath and jerked away instinctively.  
“Hmmhmm-- good evening…” Medusa drawled. Cadmus at once felt very observed.  
“Evening… what’s going on?” he asked, bewildered.  
“Well you’ve been sitting patiently all day in less than ideal conditions, so I thought I might show my appreciation. You haven’t eaten—and you didn’t look like Achilles when you arrived.” He frowned at the goading comment.  
“Eat.” She ended bluntly, sliding the tray towards him with her right foot. She sat in front of him, with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms folded across: for the first time in decades feeling exposed in her nudity, despite her only company not having the faculty of sight.  
“I can’t….”  
“Can’t what?” she asked, cocking her head slightly.  
“I can’t use my *hands*” he replied, exasperated at her for not understanding the conflict of her demands and the predicament she herself had put him in hours ago.

She pretended like she hadn’t forgotten, so as to not threaten her dominance. “Just teasing, boy. I’m fully aware and am prepared to do nothing about it. In fact, part of me thinks you will *object* if I do…” she teased, trying to get him to confess his tendencies. “Now, open up.” She tugged lightly at his bottom lip so he wouldn’t miss her intention.  
He tentatively parted his lips and she pressed something between them: oval and smooth. He cautiously bit down on the olive as she placed her thumb and index finger either side of his jaw.  
“And?” she pressed.  
“Thank you, it’s very good. But I wonder how you get olive trees when you most likely cannot leave the cave?”  
She tapped his cheek affectionately, “You’re an astute young man. No: I dare not, and need not, venture outside. The light streams in so I can soak in it if I lie near the entrance. My needs for food are taken care of by my mistress, Athene. She will occasionally direct men here under some false pretence, where I will take their possessions and eat their livestock. Between these visits, she ensures that a garden will grow, right here in the cave.” She led him to make the connection between the foods being placed in his mouth and the garden to which she was referring. 

Taking a moment, Cadmus said “was….was she the glassblower I met? He seemed to know a lot for someone eavesdropping. Can she become a man, just like that?”  
“How do you expect me to answer that?” she quipped, marginally irritated. “For better or worse, you’re here now.”  
“Why does she do so much for you?” he asked.  
She began to pace the room. “I do what any devoted servant of the gods does. I pray to her and burn offerings from the riches she brings me.” She paused for a moment. “Do I look like I would eat a whole horse?”  
“With those muscles I wouldn’t be surprised” he said, promptly, as if without forethought. She thought she saw him lick his lips.  
She playfully prodded him in the chest with her foot. “Sweet of you to say.”  
She drew closer to him, hands on knees and leaning right into his face. “Let us put aside my curse for a moment. Do I still intimidate you?”  
“Yes, but… not as much as you terrify me.” He offered.

At this her eyes grew wider and a shadow of a grin warped one cheek. “Terrify you?” she began: “Terrify you how?” she softened as she pressed him more keenly.  
He swallowed drily before he responded. “You terrify me because my reaction to you terrifies me. I don’t have the words for what I feel when you touch me, or command me to do something. I know that I’m meant to be scared of you, but that’s because you’re a man-slayer, and because I was told you’d kill anyone who saw you. But that’s not what scares me about you. After all, you haven’t killed me. Yet.”  
He chuckled half-heartedly. “Men aren’t supposed to get captured, especially not by women.”  
He seemed to think deeply before pressing on. “And we’re not meant to like it.”

She felt triumphant: instinctively aware that she was the first person to hear those words from his mouth. This put her in an unprecedented position in his life to shape and manipulate him. At the same time, she was also sympathetic to his likely catharsis at being able to bare himself fully to someone. She reasoned that he would need to be guided through the aftermath of his confession, in order to find security in her direction, and to ensure that her will would eventually supersede his own.

“That was a bold step you just took, my sweet. I bet that was eating you alive. There’s no shame in finding comfort in captivity. One could almost call it natural…” she expounded as she stroked his hair lazily. She wanted the sensation to crowd out his mind so that he couldn’t react critically to her words.  
“How could you possibly call this normal?!” Cadmus barely managed to exclaim, slowed by her ministrations.  
“Don’t question me, boy…” she cautioned, “it’s natural in the sense that you grow to depend on your captor; then, you will yourself to develop a positive association with that person. Some go further than acceptance, and find, as I said, *comfort* in being at the mercy of someone else. Someone with the world on their shoulders, little life experience, a runaway mind, or a combination of the three, relishes the chance to have choice taken from them. No need for you to think, no need to take action, nothing to be responsible for. Your world becomes as finite as four walls.” 

She could heart his breathing regulate and his anxiety recede back inside his skull. She was as of then unsure if it was her elucidating words, or calming gestures, that made him docile.  
“So what is it, my sweet, that makes you enjoy this? Be specific” she advised.  
“I suppose I like not knowing what you’re going to do to me next, or how you’re going to act.” He began.  
“Go on” she urged.  
“I mean, in this past day I’ve been knocked out, trampled, hand-fed fruit and had your fingers in my hair. I cannot for the life of me imagine what you might do to me next! All I’m certain about is that to some extent I’ll enjoy it.”  
She hummed appreciatively and stroked the graze on his cheek with her thumb, cherishing the memory of kneading it into the rough ground. “Anything else?...” she pressed.  
“I felt the safest when you first bound me, when I couldn’t feel my hands and I couldn’t speak. I knew that I couldn’t get myself into deeper shit by saying something foolish. I also knew that I couldn’t cry for help so there was no reason to try.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but closed his mouth again. Medusa needed to get him talking once more.

“You mentioned fear of saying the wrong thing? You don’t think you can trust yourself?”  
“Not in this case, no.” he replied. “I worry that I’ll say what I’m supposed to, rather than what I want.” He paused to elaborate. “I’m supposed to be all assertive and heroic : “You’ll never keep me here, you whore!” and then get killed by you in anger, or else trick you into giving me the opportunity to escape.”  
“But that’s not what you want to say?” she intuited.  
“I want to tell you “please don’t let me go.””  
They were silent as he thought of how to go on. “I love it when you’re gentle with me. Like now. And I know the kind of men who’ve met their end around us. “Passive” is perhaps the worst way to describe them. If I’m, well, harmless, I might see your good side.”

She didn’t know how to reply. Kindness was not what she wanted him to relate to her. Authority? Yes. Safety? At this moment, surely. But a *façade* of kindness made her feel evil. Kindness changed things.  
Her drifting mind recentred when she heard him begin to sob and soak his blindfold.  
“Why am I like this?!” he cried out, anguished. “Why do I want to be weak?”  
She felt quite uncomfortable with this outburst, and sought to comfort him in some part by putting her hand on his thigh. She stayed silent, letting him know that he was permitted to vent.  
“Every other man in my family has gone to war, and I couldn’t let myself be one of them…. My brothers had to look to each other, since they only saw weakness in me. And now, when they’re dying on their shields, I’m begging for my life in fucking Medusa’s lair!”  
She was outraged at his last statement. She didn’t have a lair.  
She slapped him sharply across his wounded cheek, making him wince and then promptly shut up. “I don’t have a fucking *lair*,” she said through clenched teeth. “I have a *home*. A home whose hospitality you now enjoy, might I add? And you aren’t weak for following your nature, you’re *sensible*.” She stressed the last word, charging it with her authority so it would be imprinted on his psyche.  
“Look to the gods, child. Does Apollo carry Athene’s spear? Does Hades think it his place to police the seas? Don’t be foolish, Cadmus. Each has something they are born to conquer, and yours is not warfare. You’re more…diplomatic. Adaptive. You know what’s good for you.”  
“Are you good for me, Miss?” Cadmus ventured, futilely looking upward to find her face.  
“I can be.” was her only response.  
Despite her cold reciprocation, he felt that his words had cleared the air between the two of them.


	4. Part of the Furniture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus and Medusa engage in a bit of relaxation and intellectual conversation. Her being who she is, "recreation" could entail many things ;)

“Do you want to see your horse?” she whispered into his ear. It was the following morning. After their conversation, she fed him the rest of the fruit, and some horsemeat. She had slapped his hand away when he reached blindly for more, insisting on burning it on the fire for her patron.   
“Very much Miss, it’s been the longest I’ve gone without seeing his face.”   
“That won’t be changing, sadly. I wouldn’t want your death to come as an accident with you looking around like a bewildered idiot.” She teased, softening the blow of still desiring his demise. 

“Sit still” she demanded.  
She proceeded to unlock the leather thongs binding his feet. She had moved the cuffs to the front of his body and had removed the fetters around his knees, once her peace became more important to her than her own security. More than once, she was roused from sleep or distracted from worship in order to cut free her little prisoner when nature’s course demanded it. Their new arrangement expedited movement around the room greatly.  
“Hands” she ordered, pulling him to his feet once he offered them; steadying him once upright yet spatially confused.   
She stood behind him, peering over the top of his head in search of any obstacles, strong hands on either shoulder to keep him well-balanced while moving forward.  
“Here we *are*” Medusa stated, her voice barely above a whisper. For her cruel and detached relationship with humans, scarred by her past, she did not carry this same animosity to animals, who curiously brought out a side to her that even her captive could not.   
“A gorgeous mane…” she cooed, losing herself in the beast. “The name?”  
“Aiax” Cadmus responded, a renewed certainty and pride in his voice. “This old man has kept me out of the mouths of lions more times than I wish to remember” It was his turn to direct his affection towards his steed. He took himself back to when he was a youth, riding the mountain trails and getting chased away from garrisons with his brothers. Despite his captor’s affection, he thought, he was still stupid to bring his good friend here and abandon him in the mouth of the ruins, himself knowing nothing of what was inside.

“Would you like to hold him?” Medusa asked, in tune with his moment of sadness.  
“May I?” he asked.  
“Let me guide you” she replied, taking his bound wrists in her hand and moving them across the beast’s narrow face, down its neck. They ran their hands over his magnificent silver hair, like children hold out their arms when they rush through wheat fields. Their glee was no less. She guided his hands further down once more, pressing them to the beast’s ribs.   
“I can feel the heartbeat through your hands” she smiled. “Strong boy.” she went on.  
Cadmus smiled as he could not disagree.  
“Yeah, strong boy.”

After a short while, she led him back over to where the fire burned near constantly, seemingly by divine will. She guided him to where she had a high-backed armchair, made of oak with a covering of silk on the seat, and bronze ended arms over which she could place her palms.   
“If you’re not going to do as you’re told and become my statue” she began, the threat growing more and more into a theatrical pretence rather than a goal of any kind, “I’ll have to use you like one as you are… Get on all fours in front of me. Quick as you can.” She chirped happily.  
“Well done.” She praised. “Now, I am going to put my feet up to read, and you will support me.” she warned. She placed her feet on Cadmus’ back, seemingly forgetting his presence.  
Cadmus did as asked for a considerable time: not opening his mouth; being careful not to shift his weight too suddenly. After a time, though, he grew tired of the lack of stimulation, as well as the existential distance from the woman using him as furniture. 

“May I ask what you are reading, Miss?” he tried.  
He thought he heard her giggle slightly. “A transcript of Hesiod’s “Theogony”.” She answered simply. “A poetic fan, are you?” she added after an extended silence.  
“Oh yes, Miss. Tyrtaios’ poems were drilled into us by our father. He was a general, so war poetry with a “fight to the last man!” message was pushed on us from very little.”  
“And what did *you* enjoy?” she pressed.  
“I enjoyed the tragedies. The Antigone, of course, hits close to home. I liked how the romantic angle was given credence by the playwright—when it would have been so easy to call her a hysterical fool.”  
“Sometimes, the woman is not to blame.” She replied.

Medusa kept her thoughts to herself for a short time, and was the first to renew conversation.  
“You never told me you were from Thebes.” She said.  
“I thought I’d die before you’d ask.” He replied.


	5. A half-life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus probes into Medusa's deep past and the revelations prove too much for them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: RECOUNTED RAPE OF MEDUSA
> 
> Apologies: this does not have the hopeful or balanced tone of the previous chapters. But I believe it is truly necessary to appreciate her as a character. There is nothing gratuitous about what I include: it is all very much informed by the existing myths and I have taken the time to make this as respectful as I can, considering I am a man writing women.

Cadmus was propped once more against the pillar that same afternoon, listening to the rhythmic scrape as Medusa passed a whetstone repeatedly over the edge of her sword.  
“Why did you sound so mournful, earlier, when we were talking about Antigone’s representation by the playwright and you said something about “the woman not always being to blame”?  
She ceased her activity abruptly, and started pacing the room, her sword arm hanging limply by her side.  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, child. I was just saddened by the memory of the tale.” To her this must have sounded reasonable.  
He thought he could sense hesitation in her voice, as if there was something she was trying to suppress with her indignant dismissal.  
“I don’t wish to pry, Miss“, he began, tentatively using the title employed when he wanted to show deference, “but it did seem like the story affected you personally—as if you were connecting it to your own experience? It’s not my business, I know, but I thought you should know that I will listen to you.”  
He listened out for further irritation in her response, but could hear only unintelligible false starts as she collected her thoughts.  
She growled, upset at herself for thinking of divulging her secrets to what was still an acquaintance. Still, she considered, was he not the only one to share her extended company for more than a century? Would venting as he had done to her aid her in easing her bitterness? Would it not, too, make him feel more secure—in a privileged position of confidence?

“You seemed to know who I was. I assume you know the story, boy? The outline?”  
“Yes—Perseus had to kill you, as a trial for King Polydektes. He got help from the gods, and cut off your head. Athene gave him a well-polished shield: she must have hated you back then…” Cadmeus continued, growing solemn as he spoke.  
She chuckled darkly: “Yes, history would have you believe that, wouldn’t it. But who would have saved me from death if all the gods were my enemies? Why would Athene continue to feed me today if she loathed me so? She returned me to this earth in a new body, unbeknownst to the other gods who forget about the fates of women as soon as they are decided. Perseus was sent to silence me after living through Poseidon’s assault, and with the supposed aid of the gods he did so. He cut me down, and to them I was nothing. They had already forgotten me when Athene gave me my new form.”  
He found it difficult to reconcile the details. “A new body? With this curse? Surely you would be better restored with your beauty intact? To live the normal life you once had?”

She snorted derisively at the insinuation. “Of course men would see it as a curse. It’s the worst thing imaginable for a man, isn’t it? To be invisible—out of society. But for a woman like myself, society did no favours.” She grew increasingly worked up and impassioned: “When your life is to be the object of others’ desires, and you are told it’s your fault, for being gifted with Aphrodite’s charms, being *seen* prompts *misery*. When society values you only for your virtue, and turns on you like a pack of wolves when it is lost, whether by your will or against it, you want nothing more than to leave it behind.”  
She turned suddenly, to scream her wrath at the only human who could hear. “I WAS RAPED—at the temple of my mistress….during worship….” Barely restrained tears cascaded down her pale cheeks at the exposure to the memory. “He…*defiled* me… with no one to hear my screams outside of the one excited by them. He ripped open my robes like a vulture, entering me while I grasped the statue of my protector with white knuckles; holding fast while my body writhed, until my fingertips bled.”

She closed her hands and crossed her arms protectively, and Cadmus heard her voice crack. It sounded as if the low chatter of the snakes, to which he had become accustomed, had slowly increased in volume with her temper, such that it now sounded like a roaring pot, with its frothing contents boiling over on the fire.  
He wanted desperately to comfort her, but he imagined that nothing could now be more odious to her, than the interjection of a man whilst she was recounting an experience of this nature.  
She continued. “I cried out to my protector—the one to whom I had pledged my life, and I would later understand this to have moved her. I would like to say the same for the good people of the city, but they only saw an unchaste woman, no longer fit to serve the gods, trembling from the throes of passion inside the holiest ground in the city. HOW could they look at a girl like that, bearing the wounds of struggle--”, she seemed to struggle to find the words for her contempt, “a high priestess, no less, and decide that the man’s testimony was more trustworthy? I BEGGED them to let me keep my position, that if they kept this a secret I would tell no one… But my pleas fell on deaf ears. There was a trial, and the jury wanted to kill me and make an example to deter other “ wayward girls ”” she mocked.  
“But then, one shrewd old priestess suggested that it would scandalize the temple. Needless to say, dishonor done to the namesake of the city could jeopardise its position in the Greek world. Instead, she suggested, I should be exiled from Athens and deprived of my position wordlessly. They would make up a tale about me to explain my absence.  
As I was being escorted out, I confronted she who saved my life. I locked eyes with her, and looking in them I saw recognition and understanding. I am to this day convinced that Athene appeared in human form.” She seemed to recover slightly at the thought of her saviour: at the thought that her years of service had not gone unnoticed by the only one she had ever loved. Growing tired of the story, she continued half-heartedly. 

“So, I travelled off the mainland and came to Crete. I set myself up here, no longer wanting a place in a world which had abused, blamed and shunned me. Word soon travelled that a pretty young woman had come to the ruins, alone.” She futilely turned to Cadmus. “One can imagine the visitors that would attract.”  
Cadmus at last spoke up. “Did they try to…take you, too?”  
“They did. But I was not so foolish as to turn my back this time. They locked eyes with me when they invaded my space, hoping to bathe in my terror. As it would happen, terror would be plastered on their own faces, when they saw what the Goddess had made me, unbeknownst to me in the initial dark of the cave. Then, their faces were frozen in time. They perished where they stood—converging around the altar.” 

A deep silence filled the sanctum—both hesitated to speak. She was reluctant to add details, and he was equally reluctant to pry. In the end he decided to convey his sympathy simply.  
“It wasn’t your fault, you know? Those men… what happened to you… no one should have to go through that. And seeing that it did…” he shook his head in disbelief, “I wouldn’t be surprised in the least, if being feared and outcast seemed like freedom to you.”  
“It did.” She said plainly. “For a time. But it’s been so long since I’ve conversed or had my existence as a human acknowledged. Sometimes I forget that I’m a person.”  
“” Sometimes it isn’t the woman’s fault…””—he repeated her words back to her, showing that he understood.  
“Listen to me.” He said. She looked back and frowned deeply: shocked at his unprecedented tone of voice. “Few carry themselves with the dignity you do, or commit themselves as intensely to their passions. Don’t ever feel like you’re disgraced, or impure, or anything less than wonderful…”. 

She sighed, approached him and kissed him on the cheek while cupping the other, before disappearing to the fringe of his hearing: her soft prayers, more sombre than usual, remained a familiar source of comfort.


	6. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus seeks to reapproach a heart-wrenching topic, and is shocked by new developments

It was almost a week later when things began to get back to normal. In the interim, she continued to help him take care of his needs, while she prayed, trained or otherwise occupied herself, but there remained a certain distance. Neither enquired into the past of the other anymore: much of the time Cadmus pretended to be asleep so he wouldn’t be sitting in a nightmare of silence of which both parties were fully aware. The quietude left Cadmus with a deep sense of guilt and shame. She clearly presented herself as a faceless enigma because she had no desire to recount her experiences.   
“I should have noticed” he thought, “from the hurt in her voice, that whatever I reminded her of would be dreadful. I’ve jeopardized my one chance at connecting with someone as unique as her. Would it really be so bad, to die in this cave? She’s never letting me go, and this atmosphere is like waking death anyhow.” 

In the end, it was only by picturing her distraught face at her only companion in this lifetime petrifying before her streaming eyes, that he refrained from lifting his blindfold. “How strange”, he thought, “that I want to live for her of all people.” “And how conceited” he added, “that I would think my death would impact her so greatly”. Ashamed at himself for both considering death, and for thinking that he mattered to his indifferent jailer, he banished the thoughts with a morose shake of his head. 

Unaware though he was, Medusa by chance looked across at him and sensed his trouble. She too harbored regrets: at her distance and her cold ambivalence the past week. She padded quietly over to him and spoke to the room casually:  
“Gods, it’s hot. You need some sun, and some air. Come.”   
She snapped her fingers a couple of times, which he took as permission to get up. Wincing slightly as he stretched out and put pressure on his legs, he moved cautiously to where the snapping seemed to have come from. He was silently proud of the ease with which he could now navigate the hall, blind as he was.  
She put a hand on his shoulder as they walked noiselessly, squeezing slightly in the hope of communicating her affection, though she was still uncomfortable talking about herself with another. Her intention seemed to have reached him, as she could feel a slight release of tension in her boy’s back, and more confidence in his gait. 

They walked until they reached the fallen pillar, by which the horse was now stabled in an improvised sort of way.   
“Gods above…” she quietly muttered to herself. “Right, I don’t trust that you won’t fall over the thing like a sack of flour, so we’ll go around.” She took his hand and led him around the length of the column, which had fallen along the width of the entrance, along with a good portion of the roof itself once the loss of support meant that it could not take its own weight.   
They came to a small gap where the column nearly met the wall.   
“Don’t bash your shin, understand? I’ve got nothing to clean you up with and the floor is largely filthy.” She smirked in a condescending, almost motherly tone, as if he was her teenage son on his way to play in the quarry. “Just…back up to the wall and shimmy along.”

He responded by dramatically splaying himself out like a spider in its web: with arms outstretched and palms flush with the wall, and his feet comically tilted outward so that they would not make contact with the rough stone. Medusa was glad of his being visually impaired, as it meant there was no need to hide her wide grin at his foolishness.   
“How far away is the opening?” Cadmus asked once they had reunited on the other side of the pillar.   
“Not far.” She said nonchalantly. “Tell me when you feel the sun on your face.”  
After not much more walking he felt a gentle zephyr brush against his cheeks, and sunlight kiss his forehead. The tiles were warmer underfoot, too—it was as if he were sitting on the edge of the Kadmeia at the height of summer. It was familiar, and soothing.   
He heard her humming softly.   
“Look at your face! I’m so sad to see your skin lose its dark lustre. Now you look like one of the shades who spoke to Odysseus. I should’ve brought you here earlier, my dear.” she chided good-naturedly: already reaping the benefits of the sun’s embrace. Her earlier malaise evaporated off her pale skin. She could not be held wholly responsible for her attitude, however: it was the longest stretch for which she had not bathed in the sun. Babysitting her companion was a full-time job.  
“You’re one to talk” he dared, “given how much time you spend squirreled away in the dark. I see why you keep no company—you don’t want anyone to see that you’re as white as the marble walls of your “palace”!”. He ended up so caught up in their shared laughter that he didn’t immediately register when she took his throat in her grasp and laid him out on his back, grinning wildly. She loomed over him like a jaguar, with one hand around his throat and then another across his chest. 

“How many ways I could turn those laughs into howls” she thought wickedly as her eyes passed over every inch of his body. Her gaze returning to rest on his face, she saw how he frantically licked his trembling lips. “He makes it too easy.”  
She tugged on his ear playfully to let him know she wasn’t about to kill him. When he smiled slightly and appeared to relax into her softening grip, she bit down where his collarbone met his neck. He gasped in shock and tensed up, pointlessly clutching at her densely muscled forearm. She enjoyed his reaction greatly, and began to growl with the flesh in her mouth, which sent pleasurable vibrations into his skull. Growing wholly absorbed in her predatory persona, she jerked her head left and right, like a crocodile subduing its kill. At which point his senses were fried, and he let out a deep moan in pleasure. 

After a particularly painful nip, he growled furiously and flipped her over so that she was under him. He heard her go still and silent beneath him: no longer even able to listen to her heavy, excited breathing. He began to lower his head with great deliberacy, leaving ghosts of kisses down her neck and navigating to her bosom by touch and scent alone—where he started to pick up a fuller perfume. He felt her back arch and then release its tension.   
Assuming that he was pleasing her, he brought his mouth down to her right nipple and began to make small, delicate circles around her areola while she scrunched his hair in rhythm with his motions. Getting lost in the moment and the hypnotic undulating of her torso, he brought one hand up over her belly, giving the nails of his splayed left palm the slightest contact with the dewy skin of her midriff. At once he felt her seize up like a spider when brushed against, felt the hand tighten like a vice in his hair, and heard a hiss sizzle from her mouth, not unlike embers off burning kindling.  
An arm at once wrapped itself around his throat and hauled him onto his back; the balls of his feet now rubbed abrasively against the rough stone floor as he frantically kicked out with them.

Her hot breath scorched his ear as she snarled into it with little restricted malice and violence.   
“Keep your FUCKING HANDS off of me…Beast.” She sharply inhaled between each word roared, to fill it with the intended hate and threat. The final word she aimed to spit directly into his soul. In that moment, she did not see the docile house pet that had become part of the scenery—instead she saw the faceless man who had lusted over, violated, and despoiled her all those decades ago. Her headdress of serpents assembled themselves in a savage mane, making her look every bit the inhuman, regal horror that legend told.

“I-idiot…” Cadmus began “didn’t think…” his choked voice failed to form his sentence coherently. “…would affect you. So-orryy, Miss. Please…stop… can make it right… Mistressss…” 

His voice grew thinner and more pained as he spoke, his words aggravating her further which she demonstrated by squeezing harder: enveloping and then constricting around her prey as if in the moment possessed by the animal spirit of the beasts masquerading as her hair. Her death lock only granted reprieve when he managed to speak her full title. The word no one else had called her by. The one that showed that despite what may have been happening, she was in control. That even if his hands were exploring her, hers was the pleasure he sought to bring about.   
She relaxed enough for him to shuffle up an inch or so, such that his windpipe was no longer under great pressure. He put his hands up over her forearm: whether in cautious preparation for a more sincere attempt on his life, or whether because he found comfort in her presence, she was as of then unsure. 

“Thank you!” he gasped,”aahhh…. Thank you.” He sat still for a moment, calming his racing pulse with steady respiration.   
“Stop sputtering; out with it.” Medusa snapped roughly.  
“I can’t apologise enough… I moved too quickly without checking for your consent. Fucking stupidly, I never even considered how your past still haunts you. Idiot.”  
Medusa began to grow tired of his fervent self-flagellation.   
“Yes I ‘m perfectly aware of that. You are an idiot. A fucking simple child who hears but doesn’t listen. Is that all?”  
He tensed up and squeezed his eyes shut at her cutting remarks. The same words seemed twice as caustic coming from her mouth as from his. He often found himself apologizing unduly, for some imagined slight, and to hear, that in this unpleasant instance, his view of himself coordinated with the view of others, crushed him.

“I… just wanted to bring you pleasure. To show you that your past doesn’t need to define how others will treat you. That someone doesn’t always want to take their pleasure at the expense of your body…That sometimes theirs comes from ensuring your own. This wasn’t about me: I wanted to make you feel good because you deserve it. I wanted you to feel how you’ve made me feel while I’ve been here… warm, safe…loved.” 

He paused to repel the tears threatening to permeate his voice.   
“But I’ve instead made you feel powerless. I’ve broken you down where I wanted to build you up. I planted seeds of distrust where I wanted to uproot it. I’ve…” he was once again speechless, frantically stuttering over nonsensical syllables to land upon what illustrated his betrayal. “I’ve hurt you… when I wanted to heal. There’s no way you can want me anymore. Take off the blindfold. I’ll perish, lying here, if you wish. Else, turn me towards the entrance and send me out. Either way, you need never see my face again.”  
He lowered his face, not wishing to see the eyes likely burning holes in the back of his skull, yet feeling he deserved it nonetheless. 

Medusa, at a later date, would look back in shame at how for a moment she wanted to fulfil his request. She envisioned tearing the bandana from his eyes, and jerking his head up to meet her cold eyes of glass, and seeing his quivering face stiffen. It would feel like her only revenge against the man who destroyed her in Athens and then swanned back into the gilded halls of Olympos. He would never meet justice on this earth, but she could get some consolation from purging the only man to touch her since.  
To Cadmus’ good fortune, there was a stronger urge inside her than the one that wanted to kill him. This would be the urge that the title used by him gave her, to go easy on her little lapdog, and to distance him from the man that had only brought destruction to her life. She came upon the realization that if she lost him, she would be utterly alone again: talking to her statues and to her goddess, to get the same reply of abject silence. He was, she realized, her lifeline to humanity, and if he died to avenge another’s sin there would be nothing to make her different from the wicked stories told to children. For his sake and for her own she would grant him mercy. She would trust that he wanted to make her feel wonderful.  
She waited for him to go completely still in her arms and yanked his hair back abruptly, hoping that the smarting pain would grab his attention.

“You should know by now, that you absolutely do not tell me what to do. You do not advise me. You do not question me.” Hearing submission in his silence, she went on. “Do you think, then, that if I wanted you dead you would still be alive? That I’d give you time to tell me that it’s the right thing to do, like you have any say? Do you think, that if I wanted you gone you would still be in my home? The reason you have been able to make your defence is because I wanted you to. I wanted to see what you would say—how you would justify yourself. “

He waited in anticipation to hear how she would continue—what punishment she might pass. Would she trample him again so that he knew his place? Would she tie and gag him as before—rendering him a harmless object indefinitely? He tensed up to hear what she would say.  
“Thank you.” She whispered, softly and clearly.   
“Miss? I don’t understand. I’m sorry….” He replied, puzzled.  
“Thank you. For trying to show me your gratitude in the way you thought most pleasurable. For understanding my coldness towards the world, and for trying to make it better with your touch. I fear that I may never trust the shape of man again given what *he* did…. But I'm... at least, I *think* I’m safe with you.”  
What she said baffled him—how could she trust him after he recreated the worst night of her life? And, perhaps more unnervingly, why did she just now speak for the first time in uncertain terms?  
Seemingly realizing this last thing herself, Medusa knew she needed to assert herself again to reestablish the power imbalance of their relationship. Without giving him time to object, she flipped him onto her chest, while still holding his neck in a chokehold, letting him know she held the reins of power.

“Continue.” She said bluntly. “As you were before. But this time, if you use anything other than your pretty mouth, I will break your arms and then laugh as you cry.” She presented her instructions with such calm authority that he was already descending on her naked chest by the time her concise threat registered. She saw him pause momentarily and she squeezed his cheeks with one hand, giggling sadistically.  
“Down you go, boy.” She said as she crushed his head to her bosom: near suffocating him between her fragrant cleavage. He breathed in deeply her skin’s aroma, as he stimulated the area between her breasts with his nose.   
She hummed enthusiastically and squeezed them together, enveloping his face as each whimper sent waves through her sternum. She used her left hand to stimulate her left nipple, pinching and rolling it steadily, as with the other she took hold of his head, moving it where she wanted it.   
He soon picked up on her intent and extended his tongue, lathing the flat side over the lower contours of her magnificent breast. She controlled the pace: dragging his head back and forth in the same way a servant might clean the tiles of the house with a brush: gripping tightly and pressing roughly for the desired effect.

“Yeessss… let me see those plump, smooth lips. You know where I like them.” She let go of his head and stretched her arms out beside her, relaxing completely and leaving the responsibility of the task and of her satisfaction to Cadmus.  
He felt his way to her nipples once more, stopping once the nub grazed his wet lips. He opened his mouth and enveloped her right breast with his warm, damp mouth. He sucked his cheeks in tight, drawing the fatty tissue deeper into his mouth and trapping blood flow near the surface.   
“Ohhhhh” she moaned as the tip of her toy’s tongue now painted brush strokes of ecstasy across her constricted nipple. He then began a rhythmic suckling motion, in turn letting the breast alternately swell and soften. The conflict of sensation was driving her to ruin.   
“Do NOT stop…” she groaned, her head back and eyes closed and fluttering in response to the sensation.   
He himself became lost in her praise and her commands, and moaned into her flesh. Sending shockwaves through her chest, he made her gasp. The tighter he sucked, the tighter she pulled his hair. He was being driven and manipulated by his masochistic urge and the music leaving his mistress’ lips.

Cadmus became emboldened by her pleasure and attempted to wrestle out of her grip and move lower, leaving a trail of butterfly kisses down to her navel. He grinned and stuck out his tongue to see how she would react.  
“The fuck are you doing?!” she tried to sound angry but broke the veneer with a laugh as she writhed from the invasive tongue.  
“Enjoying myself!” he chuckled in turn.  
“Hmmmm….” She frowned disapprovingly, “did I tell you to play? Or to get to work?”  
“Oh, ermm… to get to wo-mmphhh” his voice was muffled by her milky flesh as she hooked one leg over the back of his head and pushed it down between her legs.  
“Aahhhh—don’t stop struggling; don’t stop making noise!!” she screamed in rapture.  
Cadmus could feel her heel against his skull, grinding it in to make him rock his head from side to side. This must have had a dramatic effect on her as she began bucking into his mouth, grinding her wet lips against his own. His performance was partially improvised based on her moment-to-moment reactions, with any uncertainty or lacking skill on his part made up for by her firm and immediate direction.   
Her voice came through far lower and more aggressive than usual. “Stiffen that tongue, boy; grind your nose into my clit as you tongue-fuck me!”  
He strained his tongue: making it rigid and extending it as far as possible into her warm canal, lapping eagerly at the juices coating her inner walls and quickly flooding his mouth. He moaned appreciatively at her diet of many fruits, as it rendered her secretions as sweet and addictive as honey, which seemed to strongly contrast with her stern demeanor and serpent hair. “This is certainly a woman of complexity” he thought.   
He put aside the powerful urge to take her ass in his hands and pull her further into his mouth, by losing himself completely in his task. The blindness made him so much more attentive to gradations in sound and texture. He listened out for her catching her breath, in which instance he would speed up his efforts so as to gradually overwhelm her and render her breathless.

She seemed to catch on to this, and between jolts of pleasure climbing her body like forks of lightning, she smirked with dark intent. She brought the leg that was resting on the small of his back up to overlap the other one. Like a boa constrictor with a jungle rodent in its clutches, she began to squeeze her prey.  
“Ahaha if I can’t catch my breath, neither can you! Toys don’t need to breathe anyway…” she jeered as she smothered her man.  
Adrenaline coursed through his system as he noticed his efforts to breathe becoming fruitless. Would she let him die? She had had many opportunities to do so, and had been in worse moods. Would she let him pass out? Almost certainly, if only to gloat over his body. He focused his whole self on making her cum. With great effort, he pulled his mouth away from her silken tunnel and brought it up to where his nose was grinding feverishly. Before she could prompt him, he wrapped his lips around her clit and sucked like he had done her nipple. He wetly kissed it as he let it out of his mouth, causing her to shudder and wince. He passed gentle flicks of his tongue over her clit, moving erratically to bombard her system with sensation.  
“Oh—oh gods: I’m so fucking close, I’m so fucking cloooose!”  
Spurred on by this as his blood pounded in his head as strongly as his heart was doing in his breast, Cadmus sped up his attack. She filled his mouth with her cum as he bit down on her button, the sharp pain combining with the plummet from the crescendo of her desire. She dragged him up by the hair as her whole body went taut and every neuron fired at once. He gasped deeply, drawing life into his agonized lungs and inhaling her natural musk in great draughts. He swallowed quickly and hungrily, once more probing her insides for any more of her flavour.   
As she came down to earth, she began to caress his ears and temples, and purred. Between gasps, she began to bombard him with praise for his work.  
“Whewww, you are a gift from the gods, my little toy. Aphrodite herself must have seized control of that tongue of yours! I’ll have to put you to use often…” she started to card through his hair with one hand idly, as his head rested on her inner thigh. 

His entire face soaked in wetness and his long, curly hair plastered to his face while he gulped down lungfulls of cool air gave him the semblance of a fish out of water. She found his desperate state equal parts amusing and endearing, and looked on him as if looking at a kitten she had rescued from the well. Wherein she lets it soak up the sun as it purrs in her lap and she smiles at its shameless vulnerability, and Medusa regarded Cadmus in the same way.   
“Sit up, flower. Let me reward you…” she tempted, watching as he reluctantly pulled himself off her slick thigh and sat back on his haunches. She sat up in turn and leaned in, letting him feel her cool breath.   
“Such a mess you are… and so lucky being the only one to taste me…. Let’s do something about that…”  
She loudly ran her tongue upwards from his chin as his face was trapped motionless between her rough palms. She laughed cruelly as he cringed and flinched away from her attack, but she quickly caught up with his retreating head and brutally began to fuck the inside of his mouth with her tongue. She explored the back of his teeth and the inside of his lips. She opened her eyes in surprise as she felt her tongue pushed back by his own. Rather than submit to her will as she had anticipated, it seemed like he wanted to compete for dominance, if only in this.  
She moaned as she felt more alive than she had in years, pitting her own strength against an equal and contrary force. The conflict and the feedback gave her existential clarity of her own personhood.  
Their tongues coiled around one another before trying to depress and conquer. The battle was as evenly matched as it was protracted. This was a silent conversation on uniquely equal terms for the two of them. As with all things that are first exciting, they both eventually grew weary of the game and she was the first to break the kiss, putting one hand gently around his throat to warn him not to initiate contact. 

“Don’t think that I *approve* of your newfound resolve… but it was an exciting change of pace. Anyway, this afternoon has given me a solution to our bedding conundrum. This floor can’t offer a lot of cushion for your head, and I wouldn’t want you to lose sleep to discomfort.” She paused and smiled as she realized how much of a lie that was. “Well, unless I’m causing it. You seemed to be quite at home between my legs though. Not to mention, it lets me keep an eye on you.” She winked slyly—then remembered his blindness.   
“But that’s later. Now, you have two choices. Wine, or bath.” She held up her left, then her right hand for each respective choice. “Which first?” she asked.  
“Drink.” He croaked through a dry throat.  
“You just want to keep me on your skin for longer!” she teased.


	7. Touching Me, Touching You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cadmus and Medusa share a luxurious, passionate bath, exploring boundaries as well as bodies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apology: Sorry it has been so long since the last chapter, friends. I was beginning a new project and had to change the roadmap for what this would be. A death in the family also killed a bit of motivation. However, please enjoy a bonus chapter: for I am releasing 7 and 8 on the same night!

They had taken drink together, and then bathed in a magically-full pool, deeper in the recess of the ruins. They both approached the developing situation with anticipation, as they realised that they must remove Cadmus’ blindfold. She stood behind him, reassuring him of her invisibility by pressing her wet nude flesh against his back. He subconsciously leaned into her as she did so, which she found adorable. 

“It’s off…” she announced once the cover had been lifted from him eyes.  
“How do we approach this then?” he wondered.  
“I’ll cover your eyes with my hand like so…” she brought her hand, wet and slippery with bath oil, across his vision and squeezed tightly, promising security. “Aaand when you wash my back, I won’t turn around. Promise.” She pecked his cheek to seal their contract.  
“Ah, sight!” he began with sarcastic enthusiasm, “what have I done to be rewarded with that?!”.  
She gave his nipple a quick pinch. She leaned in and had her snakes nip the air around his ears.  
“My little ones could bite out your eyes—would that be better?”  
“…”  
“A threat is all it takes to keep you quiet? Unlike your name, that is something I will certainly remember…”

She put the washcloth in his hand. He started to squeeze the water out on instinct.  
“Ah ah ah…” she interrupted. “Leave some water, darling. I want it nice and… *wet*.”  
“Why does it matter, we’re sitting in a pool?” he replied, confused.  
“I’ll fucking drown you if you don’t start doing as you’re told!” she warned, initially serious, but starting to laugh when he snorted at being threatened in a bathtub. “Look at you! I let you fuck me with your mouth once and you start acting like my belligerent son, not my house pet!”  
“Sorry Miss…” he sadly mumbled.  
She sighed. “I’ll treat that as genuine. Come on then, turn around and lather me up.”  
He quickly sprang into action.  
“Not that you shouldn’t trust me, but it’s best if you kept your eyes closed just in case.”

Doing so, he reached out blindly with the rag in the search for her chest.  
“Bless—I’ll guide you” she reached out and took his hand tenderly in her own and slowly brought it over to her chest. “Be careful with my breasts—smooth circles please.”  
He moved in the ways he was instructed: starting around her chest and soldiers, before cleansing her underarms and her abdominal region. As much as he was guided by her hands initially, he began to take direction from the natural contours of her muscles, identifying the rigid bumps of her abs.  
He tentatively moved his hands further down between her legs, for her to clasp his wrist between her palms and stop him in his tracks.  
“Save the best for last, sweet…” she teased.  
She ran her hand down his wrist, over the back of his hands to rest over the washcloth.  
“Give.” she said. He let go and rested his arms either side of the tub, exposing himself to her.  
“Good boy” she purred. “You didn’t even need to be asked. Now enjoy…”  
His blindness made him hypersensitive to the sensation of the soft cloth being gently dragged across his skin. He got tingles all down his spine when she soaked an area and then took her attention somewhere else, as the cool breeze chilled the droplets settling on his bare skin.  
Medusa moaned approvingly at what she saw. “Mmmm the droplets look divine on that dark skin of yours…” she drawled.  
He didn’t know how to react to her appraisal, so he sat and smiled wryly.  
“Lift your arms for me, darling”. He did as he was told.  
“That position is very inviting—we’ll have to see if we can recreate it elsewhere” she said ominously.  
She ran the cloth up each of his sides, and then began to use it to massage his trapezoid muscles connecting to his neck, earning her a satisfied moan.

He felt her break away from him, and heard a surge of water coming towards him and splashing over his stomach.  
“You can open your eyes, pet”. Her voice sounded muffled, more distant.  
The low, warm candlelight helped him adjust to the light for the first time in the better part of a week. He was once more presented with her expansive back and his first real audience with the occupants of her scalp.  
“You can pet them” she interrupted his inspection. “But be slow and careful—you could say they have a mind of their own.”  
His mouth suddenly bone dry but his head brimming with curiosity, Cadmus extended an arm to brush the nest of vipers—their myriad colours flashing as they variably caught the light. They hissed as he came closer, but once he paused their racket died down. He looked on in wonder as some of the creatures began to venture forth independently: assessing the outsider with silent licks of their forked tongues. Once her felt he had gained their trust, he relaxed his fingers into a loose blade and brushed upwards with the back of his hand.  
This treatment was met by a sharp inhalation and a wince from Medusa.  
“Am I hurting you?” he worried, once he withdrew.  
“No—thank you. Just sensitive. You can imagine how long it’s been since they’ve been touched like that.”  
“You don’t wash your hair?” he asked, puzzled.  
“No need—a quick dip in the water and they dry off in their own time. No need to… “ she paused and shivered “brush them, like you’re doing.”  
“Ohhh.” He caught on. “Good sensitive? Or bad?”  
She answered his question with her own. “How does it feel to have someone’s mouth against your ear?”  
“I wouldn’t know.” He said simply and somewhat sadly.  
“You will soon enough. Continue, anyway.”  
He suddenly remembered what he was behind her to do.

Once more, he followed the lines of her sinewy muscles, which did not add bulk so much as definition to her body, resulting in her looking even taller than she was. The pleasing solidity to her frame made him more confident in scrubbing more briskly than he would have for another woman, like the concubines he took to the baths in Olympia.  
She tightened her grip on the sides of the bath and groaned as she seemed to enjoy the impromptu massage.  
Sooner than they both would have liked, he was done.  
“It will be easier if I stand for this next bit.” She said as she got up. His eyes followed her back as she arose, and then settled on the firm peach of her behind.  
“Enjoying the view?” she asked, not needing to hear his response.  
“Yes Miss.” He said simply, using most of his faculties to process the image.  
“Feel free to look with your hands—I’m starting to get cold standing up…” she said, mildly impatient.  
“Yes! Right! Sorry—” he apologetically babbled, as he submerged the cloth and then brought it up to clean her large globes.  
“Squeeze them a bit…” she said, moaning slightly. He did so and her moans increased in volume and frequency.  
“Pull them apart, darling, and clean between.”  
His hand was enveloped by her warm, damp flesh as he wiped between her cheeks.

“That’s enough; move to my legs, please.”  
He cupped water between his hands and emptied it over her long, smooth legs. He put a hand either side of her thigh and rubbed down, seemingly forever.  
When he reached her calves, he started to knead them earnestly, which was rewarded with a hand in his hair, softly scratching as if petting a dog.  
He did not object.

He closed his eyes and smiled: leaning forward to kiss her cheeks. He was jerked out of his headspace by a stinging slap, delivered sternly to his right cheek by the hand that had been caressing his locks just a moment ago.  
“Ooww…” he winced.  
“Haven’t I told you? Don’t *touch* me without my telling you!” she yelled, temper inflamed.  
“Sorry, Mistress. I—I was caught up in the moment.”  
“Aarghh… it’s not a good excuse… but nor was it a grave transgression.” She began, sounding conflicted. “Just… think before you touch. Let’s try to have a nice time.”  
“O-of course, Mistress.” He replied, head bowed in shame and embarrassment at her scolding.  
“Looks like you’re done, in any case. Turn around as I did, then hand back the cloth.” She sighed.  
“Am I not washing your feet, Mistress?”  
He heard her giggle softly.  
“Not at this moment, lovely. Later.”

He did as he was asked, then received from her the same gentle affection and care that he had shown. She teased his nipples as she washed his sides, wickedly moving the washcloth round to his front, rubbing and pinching them through the thin, soft fabric.  
“Aahhh…” he moaned breathlessly, eyes closed in pleasure. He heard her bite his earlobe and whisper breathily into his ear.  
“As you can see… the no touch rule only applies to you, boy. I can put mine wherever I want…I own you, after all…” she let the final syllables hang in the air as she lathered up his back with the soapy water.  
“I’m going to lay you down now, boy. Don’t worry—I have you.” Her reassuring voice filled him as he let the water rise up around his body until it began to tickle his jaw and ears. She was sat behind him, holding his head protectively.  
“Now, cover your eyes and tilt your head back into the water, so I can wash your hair.”  
He once more did as asked, and then lay motionless as he felt her shower his face and hair with water which she had collected in her palms and then dumped over him, slowly and hypnotically.  
He could feel her tug on and play with the strands.  
“You’re more attentive with your hair than are most women;” she mused wryly. “If you can be trusted not to scarper, I’ll send you to the market for some fine oil one day in the near future.”  
“Why would I run, when I have all this at home?” he asked, gesturing widely to the expansive cavern.

Her heart twinged when she heard these words. Home. He thought of her aged little dwelling as his home. Did that mean he thought he was hers? She didn’t want to assume too much success too quickly, but his actions pointed in that direction.  
She cupped his face and leaned in, so that her lips were inches from his face.  
“Did you really call this your home?” she insisted.  
“If it isn’t too presumptuous—then yes. This is where I feel most safe. And happy. And fulfilled.”  
She now hovered so near his lips that she grazed them when he spoke.  
“And…” he anxiously continued.  
She traced his brow with her thumbs to reassure him.  
“And?”  
“And it’s my home because it’s *your* home… and I belong to you.”


	8. Person, Pet, Property

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a lapse in judgement, Cadmus confronts Medusa about what he means to her.

His confession was met by a kiss that threatened to devour him, and almost did. She mashed her lips against his with near violence: moaning deep into his skull, hoping to reach his soul. She was so forceful that she pushed his head beneath the water, barely noticing as her tongue invaded his mouth which immediately gave up its defence as it recognized the intruder as a welcome friend. She explored the soft crevices of his mouth and the tunnel of his throat with her serpentine tongue. She felt him squirm more uncomfortably beneath her, and cracked a smile. He must have discovered her forked tongue.  
He began to struggle more earnestly: more frantically and with less respect for the situation. It was then that she broke from her consuming domination of her boy and felt the water’s surface against her cheeks. 

“Shit!” she cried as she pulled him to the surface in an instant. “How long was that?”  
“Too long!” he croaked. “I thought that was it…”.  
Her face creased with worry, aware that she had lost control of herself. “Of course not…I don’t want to harm you!”  
He rolled his eyes at this assertion. “You don’t? You’ve beaten, choked, and threatened to kill me! Why should I think *this* is where you draw some sort of line?”. She could see that he was really angry.   
She was infuriated by his attitude, and by his refusal to take into account the change in her treatment as they grew closer. 

“If I wanted to harm you, I would do it with my own body, as I have demonstrated. I may not want to harm you, but I will *hurt* you if you forget how to speak to me.” She threatened darkly, arresting the room with her strength. “It was an accident. I apologise. But if you want a future with me, you must learn to trust my intentions.” She ran the back of her hand along his cheek as she spoke.  
He kissed her hand reverently for his own apology.  
“I’m sorry for shouting. I want to trust you, Miss. I want to trust you with my life. But…”  
“But?” she repeated.  
“But part of me still thinks that you don’t think of me as a person. That I’m just a toy… a pastime. A pet.”  
“And if that were true, why would it mean I don’t care about you?”  
“Well…because you don’t think of them as people, of course.”  
“Have you had any pets, dear? I know you have your horse. Aiax. You would care if he died, correct?”  
“Of course—I value him a great deal. We share history, and a bond.”  
“Indeed. But is he not a tool? You use him for transport, don’t forget. And is he not a sort of pet? You have ownership of him, you feed him, you named him?”  
“Again, that is true, but—”  
“But nothing, *pet*.” She added stress to the final word. “You accept that a pet has lasting value to you and you would never harm it. So it is between the two of us. You are my pet: I have ownership of you--to which you have just so sweetly attested--and I care for you. You are my toy—I use you to practice being in control after my past made me lose it. And you are my pastime—I love imagining new cruel, dehumanising ways for you to show your devotion to me.” 

She clasped his head so it could not move and breathed against his ear.   
“But I will never cause you anguish I cannot judge you to endure, and I will never stop looking out for you.”  
She could hear him whimper at the caveat to a painless future, and could hear his pulse as her head drew close to his neck. She heard him sputter, seemingly speechless. Nothing needed to be said, anyway.  
“You said that you belong to me. I accept—and cherish—that responsibility. For as long as you are mine, *never* fear for your life.” She felt him relax and lean on her. “Fearing for your *good health* is still permitted, however.” She cracked a smile and kissed his forehead, not being able to resist making him squirm while she made him feel safe.

After some time, he recovered his voice.  
“Thank you, Miss. Part of me thought that a creature like yourself could never see a human like myself as equal. But a greater part of me has been made to see that you may even care more about me than I do! I didn’t know I could ever be valuable as anything but a hunter.”  
She kissed him furiously for reassurance and to quieten his doubts.   
“Now that I have broken from it, I can see that one of the worst parts of human society is how people are valued by their profession alone. You all have so much more to offer… But what did you mean by “a creature like myself?”. She refused to back away.  
“Divine.”  
“Would you believe me if I said I was blushing?”  
“I would!” he smiled. “I trust you, remember?”.  
Her dark lips curled into a grin. “Good boy.” She purred.


End file.
